Loyal Jones Appalachian Center

Thank you to all who came out last Wednesday for our last Dinner on the Grounds with Lonnie and Twyla Money! These beloved folk artists were interviewed by 4 Berea College students and genuinely engaged with the them and the audience, swapping stories, sharing pieces of advice, and allowing us all to catch a glimpse of their creative process.

We are saddened to hear about the passing of Billy Edd Wheeler, a renowned singer and song writer born and raised in Boone County West Virginia, and Berea Alum.

To honor his memory we will spread the joy of his music! We have 30 of his CDs to giveaway on a first come first serve basis. To win you must like our page, comment on this post (perhaps share a memory of Billy or his music), and message us your mailing address.

Sending love to all who knew and loved Billy. We are grateful to his many contributions to Berea and beyond.

Join us next Wednesday Sept 18th from 5:45-7:00pm for a dinner presentation featuring Kentucky folk artists Lonnie & Twyla Money!

Folklore students Bailey Cromer, Autumn Earp, Gagan Phuyal, and Layla Planas will take the lead in interviewing the Moneys about their art, their influences, and their special partnership.

Lonnie & Twyla live Laurel Co., Kentucky, and have been influential Kentucky folk artists for 50 years. This event accompanies an exhibit of their work at the Doris Ulmann Galleries in the Rogers-Traylor Art Building.

We will start serving dinner at 5:30. This event is free and open to the public at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center.

We hope to see you there!

Congratulations Rick Childers on a successful book launch for Turkeyfoot! Thank you all for coming out.

We love Tuesday afternoons because the gallery comes alive with music from weekly jam sessions led by the wonderful Sam Gleaves!

Help us celebrate the release of Rick Childers's debut novel Turkeyfoot at next our first Dinner on the Grounds of the Fall Wednesday at 5:45, September 11!

Rick is the Appalachian Male Advocate and Mentor at Berea College. He graduated from Berea in 2016 with a degree in English and has been working on his MFA at Spalding University.

Join us for dinner, a reading, and book signing on this special occasion! Dinner will be served on a first come first basis.

This event is FREE and open to the public at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center.

We are thrilled to collaborate with the Doris Ulmann Galleries to bring a stunning exhibit to Berea showcasing art by Lonnie and Twyla Money! It is now up and ready for visitors at the Rogers-Traylor art building during week days between 9-5.

Lonnie and Twyla are folk artists from London Kentucky and this exhibit put together by Karen Abney is truly awe-inspecting and worth taking the time to see in person!

We buy our rocking chairs from local chairmakers! Check out our new tags Christopher Miller made highlighting each one.

Power drills and hot glue guns = just another day of work at the Appalachian Center

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Betty Jean Hall, a trailblazing attorney and fearless advocate who revolutionized the coal mining industry for women. A Kentucky native and Berea College graduate, Hall founded the Coal Employment Project in 1977, breaking down barriers that kept women out of the mines and leading successful lawsuits that forced coal companies to hire women. Her relentless pursuit of justice not only opened doors for thousands of women miners but also advanced broader workers' rights. As a federal administrative judge, she continued her fight for fairness by streamlining benefits reviews for injured miners.

In the words of Cecil Roberts, "We have lost a champion for human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and workers' rights."

📸 Betty Jean Hall receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award at Berea College in 2023. Photo by Thomas Moonjeli, Berea College Magazine

Come on by and paint your own wooden bird! We’ll be hanging these throughout the Appalachian Center and at the end of the semester vote for the winners!

We are open week days from 8:30-5:00.

Happy first day of classes Berea Students! Team LJAC welcomes you. Stop by and see us!

We are BEYOND GRATEFUL to the wonderful people and organizations who helped make this year's Appalachian Tour possible! From Hazard KY to Huntington WV we were hosted by community leaders and people doing amazing work across Appalachia including: Thompson Scholars, Appalachian Arts Alliance, Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, Mountain Association, Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum and Cultural Center, Inc., Appalshop, Cowan Community Center, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Olarotimi Ponder, The Hotel Thelma Project , West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, Cicero Fain, Unlimited Futures, Center for Excellence in Recovery, and the many other individuals who contributed to this transformative experience.

We're excited to share this important event, which will take place in Mount Sterling, KY, on Oct. 1 and 2. Call for proposals is open, but spots are closing fast. "Thirty-five Affrilachia Scholars will receive a $100 stipend to attend and participate in the two-day event."

The Affrilachia Summit October 1st & 2nd, 2024Gateway Regional Arts CenterMount Sterling, Kentucky Call for Proposals Attend the Summit the inauguralAffrilachia Summiton Black Arts & Culture in Central Appalachia The Affrilachia Summit is a groundbreaking national convening that seeks to celebrate, codify, and uplift the....

The Loyal Jones Appalachian Center and all of our 32 travelers with Berea College are so so so thankful for the welcome and kindness of all we met in Bluefield and for the wisdom they shared!

Remembering the life of late Dr. Phil Curd, founder of White House Clinics, and his daily service to health and wellness of so many of us in Jackson, Rockcastle, and Madison Counties and beyond. 🙏🏼

A Life, A Love, A Legacy - Reflections on the Life of Dr. Philip Curd A Life, A Love, A LegacyReflections on the Life of Dr. Philip CurdThe particulars of someone’s life are easy to set down once they pass. Those...

Check out our new rocking chairs handmade by Mason and Orpha Lee Alexander of Rockcastle County Kentucky!

Come on over, try them out, and post a picture using

Last Friday we took several Berea faculty and staff on a half day tour around Big Hill, Burnt Ridge, and Clear Creek Creative to learn about Berea's relationship with the local landscape, its history, its ecology, and to meet wonderful people with deep roots and connections to the places.

Huge shout out to Calvin Gross, Ron Owens, Bob Martin, and Carrie Brunk for hosting our crew and sharing beautiful stories and histories of this region.

Pretty in pink!

It’s not uncommon for Chris Green and Chris Miller to wear pink, but for both to come to work in pink on the same day? That’s a photo worthy moment. 🩷

Join the Bluegrass Writers Studio this evening in the Appalachian Center at 6:00 for a reading with renowned poet Chen Chen!

This event is free and open to the public! No need to RSVP.

Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018-2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and currently teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast. He lives with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles

We hope you can make it!

Berea’s Andrew Baskin is third from the right!

Applications are open for the National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) 3rd Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship! This fellowship provides six $5,000 awards to support culture bearers and practitioners who research, examine, perform, develop, and document Black Appalachian storytelling traditions in the Appalachian Regional Commission designated counties of Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Fellows will also receive funds to attend the "In the Tradition..." 42nd Annual National Black Storytelling Festival and Conference in October.

Apply by Thursday, August 22nd at: https://ecs.page.link/E1vMM

📸: Fellows at the 2024 Appalachian Studies Association conference. Credit: Joel Chapman.

The Quiet Gift - Issuu Chris Green grew up in Lexington.

Voice of Witness, a human rights oral history nonprofit is releasing a new book Beginning Again: Stories of Movement and Migration in Appalachia and invite you to join their virtual launch on Friday June 20 from 5:00-6:00!

"Beginning Again" brings together first-person narratives of refugees, migrants, and generations-long residents and explores complex journeys of resettlement. In these stories, Appalachia is not a monolithic region of poverty and strife stuck in the past, but rather a diverse place where belonging and connection are created despite displacement, resource extraction, and inequality. Together, the narratives present a nuanced look at life in contemporary Appalachia, expand our ideas of who belongs, and add to the growing body of works that counter damaging myths of the region.

We're thrilled to announce the launch of Beginning Again: Stories of Movement and Migration in Appalachia, our new oral history book, on June 20th!

Join us for a conversation about displacement, resettlement, and belonging. RSVP here: https://bit.ly/3yVl7gV

We loved having the Berea Arts Council summer camp kids come over for a session in the Appalachian Center today! We talked about how culture and technology has changed over the years and let them interact with various artifacts from our collection.

Jerry West, the West Virginian who is the literal image of the NBA, has passed away. But did you know he grew up on where Cabin Creek (yes, of the 1912 Cabin and Paintcreek Strikes) flows into the Kanawha and his father was a a coal miner and member of the UMWA?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/sports/jerry-west-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zU0.H4QM.XZAmQwjldbQ9&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life

Hi Everyone, Voices of West Virginia features 14 nationally celebrated authors with deep-dive interviews and activities for all age. I'm Chris Green, director of the App Center and an Appalachian literary guru, and I am SO EXCITED to share this grand virtual reawakening of Kate Long's amazing 2002 award winning project, because my heart may live in KY, but I think it still belongs to WV.

We had so many great summer reading recommendations by our followers in our last post that we picked the titles off our shelves in Faber Library and compiled them in this photo 📚

If you were to compile a list of summer reading full of Appalachian authors, what would it include?

Photo featured here is of a mural at the City Lights Bookstore in North Carolina.